And then use the built-in Airport to supply a wifi signal? Is it as straightforward as my imagination would have it?

(OS is 10.8)

I use this set up with no issues at all running OS 10.6.8.

Thanks for that. Which provider/network do you use?

Vivo here in Brazil. I don’t know if this will give you confidence or not, but there has been a great scandal in that the other 3 (not Vivo) mobile networks have been banned for a month from selling new SIM cards as their services are so bad! Vivo is probably the best but not amazing, and it still works pretty well, so I am sure you will get on much better in the UK.

Oh, so perhaps not comparable. I’ll be in Ireland, where I’ve previously found the mobile reception suitable wherever I’ve been.

I’d read somewhere that the installation software for some dongles meant that the Airport couldn’t be used. Did you have any issues?

related – I’ve used – when on holiday – an O2 3G dongle to get the connection on my MacBook Pro, and then used the Bluetooth PAN creation facility to link an iPad, seems to work pretty well. Getting the dongle software to get in to the signal or hotspot was the hardest bit.